FIREFLY84'S PROFILE

author=Liberty
Uh, why do you need to test that? The mastery bar doesn't affect much but bonuses you get after battle. The higher you get, the better they'll be.

The Mastery choice you make in the menu just lets you choose a bonus for in-battle that will activate when you get to that level on the mastery bar. It tells you in the menu itself what that bonus is. This only happens in battle and you can get it over and over again in the same battle. It does not affect anything outside of battle.

An example:
If you equip the Strength Mastery to level 2 then when you reach level 2 on the mastery bar in battle your group gets a big bonus to your Force (attack) for as long as you are above level 2 in the mastery bar. It will trigger again each time you get over that amount.

After battle, the Strength Mastery doesn't do shit - no matter what level. If you finished the battle with level 1 on the mastery bar then you get the bonuses for finishing with the characters you have in that battle. If level 2 then you get a bit more of a bonus, if level 3, the highest bonus you can get (I believe the bonuses are along the lines of level 1 - 7%, level 2 - 14% and level 3 - 25%).

What bonuses you get depends on what characters you have in battle (you can see what bonuses you will get based on the little symbol below their face in battle) and how full the mastery bar is when you end the battle.

The only reason I can see that you'd try to do a battle again is to get bigger bonuses by aiming for level 3 every time, but battles do respawn so you might as well just fight the enemies.

Also, it shows you on the mastery bar what level you put the Mastery skill at so you don't need to recheck that over and over again. You can't level up your Mastery skills or anything. You just unlock them by getting items and then spending AP on them, then choose which ONE you want to set for battle and at which level. That's it. It's simply a small extra bonus during battles to help you out.